








.^'■\ 












6^ o«'.^<'., V ^- , 







>'^ 



^ ^^ % 




^-^^^ 


















./ ''%. 


















'^-^.rx^ oV'^^^^a"- ^^^^ ^Ml^^^\ '%.Ji 











0' 



• A^' 















'^0^ 



.J> *o.o- ^^ 



^,- *^ ^.^ WW^' / -^ 






><f>^ f\V n H a 



^^^°,* 



O^ * 














THE 



WIDER OUTLOOK 



BEYOND THE 



WORLD WAR 



y>Y 
CHAKLE8 E. HOOPEE, 

A.tithof of ''The Xeed of tJte Nadons : An Tiiternational Parliaincnt.''' etc. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

XTbe [kuicl^erbocker ipress 



THE WIDER OUTLOOK 



BEYOND 



THE WORLD WAR 



BY 
CHAKLES B. HOOPEK, 

Author of " The Need of the Nations : An International Parliament,'''' etc. 



G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Ube Icnicfterbocker press 

1915 










C^TT3#f:ie Institution 

0f ia^WLngton 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. AIM AND SCOPE - - - - - - ^ 

II. THE PASTING OP THE WAYS - - - - 7 

III. PACIFISM VEESUS MILITARISM - - - - 9 

IV. WAR AND CIVILIZATION - - - - - 11 
V. ARMED RESISTANCE AND NATIONAL KNIGHT-ERRANTRY 1^ 

VI. ARBITRATION PLUS MEDIATION VERSUS WAR - - 15 

VII. THE ETHICS OF WAR AND PEACE . - . 18 

VIII. THE NEEDED REFORM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW - 20 

IX. HUMANITY'S OCCUPATION OF THE GLOBE - - 21 

X. " THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN " - - - - 22 

XI. UNIQUE CHARACTER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE - 23 

XII. A LEAGUE, AS ALTERNATIVE TO A LAW, OF PEACE - 25 

XIII. THE WORLD WAR AND ITS TROUBLED SPECTATORS - 27 

XIV. THE DUTY OF THE NEUTRAL NATIONS - - . 28 
XV. THE DUTY OF PROGRESSIVE STATESMEN - - 30 



A PRUSSIAN OFFICER ON PEACE 



" Whoever fights in this war in the front ranks, 
whoever realizes all the misery and unspeakable 

wretchedness caused by a modern war will 

unavoidably arrive at the conviction, if he had 
not acquired it earlier, that mankind must find 
a way of overcoming war. It is not true that 
eternal peace is a dream, and not a beautiful one 
at that. A time will and must arrive which will 
no longer know war, and this time will mark a 
gigantic progress in comparison with our own. 
Just as human morality has overcome the war 
of all against all ; just as the individual had to 
accustom himself to seek redress of his grievances 
at the hands of the State after blood feuds and 
duels had been banished by civil peace, so in 
their development will the nations discover ways 
and means to settle budding conflicts, not by 
means of wars, but in some other regulated 
fashion, irrespective of what each of us indi- 
vidually may think." 

— Baron Marschall von Bieberstein. 

{Quoted by the ''Daily News" of January 2, 1915, from a letter which 
appeared in the ''Berliner Tagehlatt'"' of December 24, 1914. The letter 
was written on October 18 from the trenches, the writer being a captain of 
the Reserves and Prussian "Landrat," and a son of the deceased German 
Ambassador to Britain. He has since fallen on the battlefield.) 



THE WIDER OUTLOOK 

BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 



AIM AND SCOPE 

During several decades most of the nations of the world, and 
especially those of the European Continent, have, though at 
peace, been diligently preparing for war. May not this 
singular process be now reversed ? May not the peoples who 
are either actors or sorely tried spectators in the present 
gigantic conflict agree to make, even in the midst of strife, 
some significant preparation for the future maintenance of 
international concord ? It is possible to regard our brave 
soldiers as actually engaged in paving a way to true tranquillity, 
through the horrors of the field of battle and of villages 
and cities laid waste. Should not the thinkers and statesmen 
of all countries be now planning to establish the world's peace, 
when it is once more won ? 

There are some patriots who wish to keep passion at white 
heat, and fear that a reasonable frame of mind and any 
discussion of peace at so critical a time as the present may 
interfere with recruiting and military efficiency. My own 
patriotism is greater than theirs. It extends to regarding my 
fellow countrymen, from Tommy Atkins to Lord Kitchener 
and from the humblest civilian to Sir Edward Grey, as essen- 
tially reasonable beings, whose sense of duty to the British 
Empire and her Allies will not be diminished, but stimulated, 

5 



6 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

by the thought that the Allied Nations have now a great 
opportunity for serving Humanity — for promoting the future 
peace and progress of the civilized world. 

The preparation for peace which (at the moment of 
writing) it is possible to make is not any adjustment of the 
rival claims of the nations at war. The fighting men must 
continue to do their part for some considerable period before 
statesmen can have any hope of effecting a settlement which 
would not invite a recurrence of strife in the future. The true 
preparation for peace consists in the preparing of men's minds 
to take a large and wise view of international relations, in 
urging the publicists and politicians of the Treaty Powers to 
exchange views among themselves and with representatives 
of neutral States on the future regulation of the world, and 
especially in remembering that no ad hoc settlement of inter- 
national affairs can ever be final — that what is really wanted 
is a system for adjusting future differences of nations, whenever 
and wherever they may arise. It is not too early to turn our 
thoughts to these matters. It may he too late when the war 
is ended ; when citizens and statesmen are full of pride in 
national achievements, conscious of their really enormous debt 
to army and navy, and naturally disposed to defer to militarist 
counsels. 

For the purpose of this pamphlet it will be best to leave 
the vexed question of the various wrongs done or sustained by 
nations engaged in the present world war to the verdict, not 
merely, I trust, of the future historian, but of the Special 
International Conference which ought to be, and probably 
will be, convened on the cessation of hostilities. How precisely 
the great upheaval came about, and who were chiefly respon- 
sible, are inquiries likewise lying beyond the scope of the 
present pages. The practical and pressing question to which 
it is hoped to give some tolerably clear answer is simply 
this : — 

Is it desirable and possible to make an end of war between 
civilized States ? 



BEYOND THE WOKLD WAE 



I shall plead that permanent peace is essentially desirable, 
and shall endeavour to indicate broadly ^low its achievement 
has come within the reach of political wisdom and goodwill. 
A full discussion of the latter point would involve some 
tentative scheme for reforming and building up interna- 
tional law and instituting an International Polity, and that 
will possibly form the topic of a subsequent pamphlet. It 
may here be mentioned that the present writer published 
anonymously in 1907 a little book entitled The Need of the 
Nations : An International Parliament. Of course, the 
"nations" took no notice of that brochure, and, even had 
they become aware of its existence, would not have been 
likely to act on its advice. But the present outbreak of war 
has set me thinking anew about the above bold project, and 
endeavouring to formulate some suggestions which may not 
be without interest for progressive spirits who work in the 
domain of practical politics. A brief forecast of these rejuve- 
nated ideas was given in a letter to the Arbitrator of December, 
1914. In the present pamphlet I shall do no more than hint 
at what the International Polity might be. 



II 

THE PASTING OF THE WAYS 

Humanity now stands at a great parting of the ways, and 
every thinking human individual becomes a force making 
either for militarism or pacifism as the governing principle of 
the future. Those who have no clear conviction either way 
are a dead weight on the side of militarism ; since militarism 
is still predominant, and has ruled the world, during the 
peaceful era of building up the German army and the British 
navy to their present dimensions and high pitch of efficiency, 
just as truly as it rules over the shattered towns and corpse- 



8 THE WIDER OUTLOOK 

strewn trenches of France and Belgium or the mined areas 
of the North Sea. The one present hope for pacifism is that 
millions of people, including hundreds of influential politicians 
and men of letters, who were either militarists or of undecided 
mind at the outbreak of this war, have been or are being 
compelled to think and feel anew and will the better way. 
From this point of view many pacifists may be inclined to 
agree with Mr. William Archer, when he welcomes the 
prolongation of the grim struggle simply for the lesson it is 
likely to teach. He writes : — 

" The great point is that war between civilized peoples 
should, once for all, work out its own reductio ad absurdum, 
and demonstrate the monstrous disproportion between its 
ravages and its results. A rapid and brilliant * steam-roller- 
ing ' victory for the Allies would have left that demonstration 
incomplete." 

Of course it does not follow that there is no good and 
great object possible to be gained by the Allies. Most pacifists, 
on our side, agree with the militarists that there is such an 
object ; though the militarists may not agree with them as to 
its true nature. They think that this war should help to 
secure the liberties of small nations, and to usher in a new 
era of internationalism, which, as it appears to many of them, 
might have actually taken concrete shape ere now had it not 
been for the ascendant influence of militarism and imperialism 
in Germany. They believe, therefore, that the present appeal 
to armed force ought to be prosecuted unflinchingly on our 
side for the sake of a future lasting era of peace and inter- 
national justice ; but they do not think that it ought in future 
to be necessary to fight for that justice between nations which 
might be lawfully administered, and they blame the militarists 
of their own and all countries, as virtual accomplices of the 
militarists of Germany in creating those conditions from which 
the present war emerged. They blame them for helping to 
cause an incredible expenditure of blood and money and an 
incalculable sum of human misery in order to settle problems 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 



which might have been far more effectually solved by pacific 
means. Moreover, they hold that the great social cataclysm 
itself will fail to have any good results unless it is followed 
by a resort to those rational methods which might conceivably 
have obviated its occurrence. 



Ill 

PACIFISM VEESUS MILITAEISM 

Let us now consider more exactly what is meant by being 
a militarist and a pacifist respectively. And first be it said 
that militarism is not necessarily German, and is essentially 
respectable. It is the respectable doctrine, accepted in all 
aristocratic British circles, and has very little likeness to that 
truculent monstrosity called militarism, which has become a 
scapegoat for the Times and the Daily Mail as well as a bogey 
for the recognized organs of Liberal-conventional opinion. By 
a militarist we should simply understand a person who holds 
that war is, and must continue to be, an inevitable incident in 
the life of nations. He may or may not consider that war 
acts as an ennobling stimulus, or as a salutary medicine, on 
peace-surfeited communities. He does consider that wars are 
bound to recur from time to time, and that these include, not 
only wars between the more primitive and barbarous com- 
munities, or wars having barbarism on one side and civilization 
on the other, but wars between highly civilized States them- 
selves. A pacifist, on the other hand, is one who believes, 
not simply that peace is essentially desirable, but that it is quite 
possible to establish lasting friendly relations between all the 
civilized nations of the world, and, indirectly, between all 
human communities ; since the more backward peoples have 
come, or are coming, under the rule and tutelage of the more 
advanced. To put the matter briefly, a militarist holds by 



10 THE WIDEK OUTLOOK 

the necessity of occasional wars, while a pacifist believes in 
the possibility and desirability of permaiient peace. 

The militarist is not necessarily an imperialist, pining for 
world dominion. He is not necessarily a Jingo, who would 
go to war on slender provocation or with a light heart. He 
need not even be one of those who dwell on the glories of 
war, when waged in a really good cause. His differentia, or 
distinguishing mark, is that he regards war as a naturally 
recurring condition of things, which cannot be averted by any 
agreement of nations, and must therefore be prepared for by 
each nation on its own account, by training and arming 
a sufficient number of fighting men and providing as many 
fortresses and ships of war and ingenious engines of wholesale 
destruction as possible. A pacifist may agree with him that 
such preparations have been wise under certain conditions, 
but the pacifist does not believe that they must always continue 
to be necessary, and he emphatically denies that the making 
of huge preparations for war is the proper way of ensuring 
peace. 

The pacifist, on his part, is not necessarily or usually 
a peace-at-any-price man. Those ultra-pacifists whose con- 
scientious scruples or natural timidity would prevent them 
from arming to save their country from actual invasion are 
even less representative of pacifism at large than is the Jingo 
of militarism at large. Pacifists are now to be found in the 
fighting ranks as well as in civil life, and, whatever may be the 
value of the frequent boast among the Allies, Belgian, French, 
and English, that they are battling against the principle of 
militarism, there is no reason to treat it as sheer hypocrisy. 
There are men now consciously risking or laying down their 
lives, not merely " for king and country," or for their respec- 
tive countries, right or wrong, but for the future peace of 
Europe and the progress of the world. 

Suffice it, then, that there is a perfectly clear issue between 
militarism and pacifism as above defined. Any man or woman 
who has a definite opinion on the subject must be either a 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAR 11 

militarist or a pacifist, and cannot be both. But many people 
have as yet formed no definite opinion, and it is especially ta 
them that the pacifist must address his propaganda. Only 
thus can he hope to turn the scale in human affairs ; for hitherto, 
as was noted previously, the balance has always dipped on the 
militarist side, and peace itself has been the bond-slave of war. 



IV 

WAE AND CIVILIZATION 

If we are condemned to form our judgments about the future 
simply by referring to the past, there is no doubt that the 
militarist has a strong case. Not only have the nations 
repeatedly flown to arms, but some half of the human world 
is now engaged in a colossal war, accompanied probably by 
greater slaughter of combatants, and entailing more wide- 
spread misery upon non-combatants, than any prior conflict- 
in the world's history. Faced by such facts as these, many 
people who are pacifists at heart are in danger of becoming 
cynical, and I can imagine a person asking himself the 
question, "What after the war?", and proceeding to answer 
it, in a series of imaginary comments on the newspaper items 
of the future, somewhat as follows : — " Heavy indemnities im- 
posed on the vanquished parties. Some considerable readjust- 
ments in the map of Europe. The transfer of certain colonial 
possessions from this Great Power to that. Victorious generals 
duly idolized and handsomely rewarded. Tommy Atkins 
thanked and forgotten. Peaceful life resumed by the stricken 
peoples on the old uncertain tenure — believed to be good for 
some years after so great a ' purgation ' of the European 
system. Many commercial failures compounded. Mammon 
re-enthroned as a god second only to Mars, and the renewed 
scramble for profits at any and every expense to humanity 



12 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

affording a mild and pleasing alternative to the overt slaughter 
of our country's enemies. Armament manufacturers rich 
enough to retire for good, but having no such intention, and 
adding all the persuasive force of their adopted newspapers to 
the prestige of the victorious armies, in the interests of con- 
tinued militarism. The peoples of the Continent still slaves 
to conscription, and England becoming a conscript nation for 
the first time in her history. Nothing whatever done to 
prevent a recurrence of war when some king or his ministers 
shall feel themselves strong enough to tear up any of the 
treaties which circumstances have forced upon them." 

A picture such as the above might turn out to be only too 
true. Nevertheless, the earnest pacifist will see to it that, in 
so far as his own voice counts for one and may win other 
voices, the facts of the future shall be distinctly different from 
and better than those of the past. This may involve optimism 
on his part, but it is not an unreasonable optimism. He has 
good grounds for believing in the reality of progress — of moral- 
social-political evolution, which is by no means a uniform and 
calculable process, but gathers secret strength even in times 
of reaction, and produces many startling and unforeseen 
adaptations to new needs. He therefore denies that we 
can adequately judge the future of humanity either from 
historical records of the past or from inductions based on such 
records. Eeal humanity is not mankind in the generalized 
sense, concerning which natural laws of a sort may be for- 
mulated. It is mankind as a unique collective aggregate of 
locally-interacting historical nations. The relations between 
these nations, like the nations themselves, are unique, and 
form the accumulated legacy of a remote past, unique at all 
its stages. We must, of course, employ general terms in 
referring to them ; but such terms always miss some of the 
concrete fullness of historical reality. 

It may be said, in general terms, that international inter- 
dependence consists, on the material side, of reciprocal benefits 
through industry and commerce, and, on the spiritual side, of 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 13 

a certain community (pervading the inevitable diversity) of 
ideas, sentiments, laws, and customs, and a common heritage 
of literature, science, and art. War destroys much of this 
interdependence for the time being, and as between the parti- 
cular belligerent nations or groups of nations ; and it is easily 
conceivable that a recurrence of wars on the terrible and 
unprecedented scale of that now being waged would practically 
destroy human civiHzation. Nevertheless, wars have appeared 
hitherto chiefly as temporary interruptions in the peaceful inter- 
course of nations, and it is not on the ground of war being 
likely to destroy civilization, but on that of its inherent wicked- 
ness and stupidity, and of all the present misery and future 
privation which it needlessly entails, that it ought to be done 
away with. For, after all, those mitigations of the lawlessness 
of war and of the sufferings entailed by it which spring from 
modern humane sentiment are more than counterbalanced by 
a Variety of added horrors, due to the modern perversions 
of applied science to purposes of destruction and carnage ; and 
war, on its offensive side, remains at least as hideous a thing 
as it ever was. Its glories resolve themselves into licensed 
homicide, robbery, and arson, on the grandest or ugliest scale ; 
while so-called legitimate warfare is accompanied by all manner 
of outrages, which, though forbidden by the none-too-rigorous 
law of nations, are inevitably enacted by criminally-inclined 
soldiers or ruthless commanders in the course of a great cam- 
paign. The present war has proved in certain respects more 
devilish than any previous conflict, and it may safely be said 
that the devilries are not only on one side ; though the deli- 
berate encouragement of savage practices which set inter- 
national law at naught cannot be charged to the Allies. As 
regards the various barbarities of which the German com- 
manders have been guilty, I will cite only the well-attested 
and systematic practice of taking and holding hostages 
— that is, perfectly innocent civilians, who are liable to be 
murdered, and are frequently murdered, for the alleged crimes 
of a populace which they have no means of controlling. 



14 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 



V 

AEMED KESISTANCE AND NATIONAL KNIGHT- 
EKEANTKY 

But if armed aggression be essentially wrong, is not armed 
resistance to such aggression essentially right, and is not armed 
intervention on behalf of outraged and oppressed nations at 
least contingently right? Under existing conditions, all but 
extreme advocates of turning the other cheek to the smiter 
V70uld answer the first question in the affirmative, and all 
who have outgrown the now-almost-impossible doctrine of 
national insularity, or international laissez-faire, would return 
a like answer to the second. The average pacifist would 
agree with both answers, but he would qualify them by the 
two following judgments : — 

(1) Aggression by one civilized State against another should 
be forbidden by international law. 

(2) Armed intervention, when necessary, should be by the 
collective action of civilized States supporting any injured 
nation, and not by individual Great Powers or groups of 
such Powers, who may seek to turn intervention to their 
own advantage, and whose action naturally arouses jealous 
suspicion among other States. 

The crying need is to substitute a regime of international 
law lawfully administered for one of selfish aggression on the 
part of certain great nations, and would-be knight-errantry on 
the part of others. 

Despite Bernhardi and Bernard Shaw, I believe that there 
is such a thing as national knight-errantry, and that the 
righteous indignation of nations is not always a hypocritical 
cloak for promoting national self-interest. Whether or no the 
judgment be due to patriotic prejudice, it seems to me that 
many Englishmen advocate fighting, and many of the best 
English soldiers are often sincerely desirous of fighting, not 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 15 



merely for " king and country," nor to win new provinces for 
the Empire or military renown for themselves, but to put thmgs 
right — to punish wrongs that were not done to England, or 
restore the liberties of downtrodden peoples outside our own 
dominions. But, as the days of personal knight-errantry are 
past, so those of national knight-errantry are numbered. Let 
us hope that the present great international tournament 
will prove to be the last of such exercises in chivalry ; 
for certain it is that, whatever interested motives the Allies 
may have, the action of Germany in Belgium has placed 
France and England in the position of knights-errant, vowed 
to avenge the wrongs and restore the integrity of a small but 
gallant nation ; while the high-handed action of Austria towards 
Serbia had previously given occasion for Eussia to assume the 
knight-errant role. 



VI 
AEBITEATION PLUS MEDIATION VEESUS WAE 

May the Allies succeed in doing justice, and inflicting no 
more injustice than is unavoidable, by force of arms ! Yet 
common sense assures us that such force cannot be relied on 
when any righteous cause is in question. Each of the present 
knight-errant nations has stood idly by while wrongs were 
being done to some helpless people in the past, and each had 
the excuse that to intervene might precipitate a great war and 
entail far more human misery than ever flowed from the 
misdeeds which should have been avenged. Moreover, there 
is not the slightest guarantee that the purest knight-errantry 
on the part of a nation will succeed in its object. All depends 
upon whether the nation which is acting the part of the 
ferocious free-booting baron of mediaeval times is strong 
enough to add the knight-errant nation to the list of its other 
victims. It very possibly is. 

It is thus never anything more than a lucky chance if 



16 THE WIDEB OUTLOOK 

justice is done by military methods. We tacitly admit as 
much when we forbid duelling or any sort of trial by combat. 
Clearly the only way to establish justice between nations, ai 
between individuals, is to inaugurate and appeal to some 
properly constituted Court of Justice. No Court can ever be 
infallible ; but the likelihood of an experienced and high- 
minded judge or bench of judges giving a wrong verdict 
is infinitely less than the likelihood of a strong nation imposing 
its unjust will on a weak one. Yet I am far from thinking 
that an authoritative International Tribunal is the only thing 
needful for securing peace. It is always desirable to resort 
to friendly reasoning and mediation before soliciting a judicial 
verdict ; and thus the second (if not the first) great desideratum 
in the interest of peace is a system of open and detached 
diplomacy y whereby all nations would take counsel together 
and formulate international recommendations , which would 
not be binding on any nation unless freely accepted, yet 
would frequently be accepted, thus obviating the necessity of 
appealing to any Court of Justice for a final decision. 

In other words, there should be a representative and 
permanently assembled or available International Council, 
which would at once act as informal intermediary between 
any particular nations, and as formal intermediary between 
certain particular nations and the International Tribunal. 
The latter would exist to interpret and administer international 
law, not to make it. The Council would be the instrument 
for consolidating and extending international law itself. It 
would fulfil these functions, not by making international laws 
over the heads of the various national legislatures, but by 
formulating and provisionally passing model statutes, which 
would become binding on as many nations as freely adopted 
them, but on no others. While the Tribunal should, of course, 
be composed of experienced judges, adepts in international law 
(a subject which must inevitably expand far beyond its present 
dimensions), the Council should consist of popular statesmen, 
by whom the democracies of the various countries would feel 



I 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 17 

themselves worthily represented. To this end the Parliaments, 
and especially the Representative Chambers, of the various 
States should take part in electing delegates to the International 
Council ; while the Council, in conjunction with the national 
Governments, should decide all questions as to the constitution 
and convening of the Tribunal, and the upholding of its 
authority, both by the submitting of appropriate cases to its 
judgment and the enforcing of its rulings. 

Naturally, one of the chief difficulties in forming an Inter- 
national Council such as is here desiderated would consist in 
deciding how many delegates the respective nations should be 
entitled to send. I would suggest that every sovereign State, 
and certain colonies and provinces which, though not sovereign 
States, have legislatures and social characters of their own, 
should each be entitled to send one delegate at least. Each of 
the greater nations might elect one delegate for every five 
millions of educated adult population shown at its last census 
— of course, excluding the population of colonies or provinces 
having independent representation in the Council. This plan, 
while securing to each of the smaller national units a voice in 
the Council, and while debarring nations like China, India, 
and Russia from a representation in proportion to their millions 
of illiterate subjects, would nevertheless give to the various 
Great Powers equitable shares of international influence ; 
their " greatness " being estimated by the civilized (and 
ascertainable) standard of a population which can read and 
write, and so possesses the rudiments of all higher culture. 
The institution of the suggested Council and Tribunal, as 
reformed substitutes for the present Hague Conference and 
Tribunal, need not be contingent on the nations agreeing 
not to go to war. The work of these bodies would, of course, 
be greatly simplified if it followed on a comprehensive treaty- 
law of compulsory* arbitration ; but, if no such treaty-law 

* Compulsory in the sense tbat all nations, great or small, bind themselves to 
resort to arbitration ; not in the sense that the stronger nations forbid the weaker 
ones to resort to arms. 



18 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

were negotiated, they would still be powerful factors making 
for the maintenance of peace. 



VII 

THE ETHICS OF WAK AND PEACE 

The only genuine glory which ever attaches to war does 
not belong to fighting, as such, but to the great ideals of 
national freedom and resistance to tyranny which inspire 
certain actors in certain wars waged against aggressive 
empires or oppressive over lordship, or to some cognate humane 
principle, such as the suppression of slavery. But must we 
fail to seek inter- State justice through judicial channels 
because it may sometimes chance to be reached through the 
hideous agencies of bullet and bayonet, big guns, and high 
explosives ? Must we suffer war to continue, in order that 
patriotism may win an occasional crown of martyrdom ? If 
the nations, acting together, have power to say that there 
shall be no more aggressive wars — small nations shall hence- 
forth be guaranteed against the lust for territory and dominion 
on the part of great ones — must this manifestly just and 
beneficent decision be any longer delayed for fear that no 
small nation in the future shall have the glorious privilege of 
displaying the heroism of a decimated, shattered, outraged, 
and down-trodden Belgium ? The question is too ridiculous ! 

" Peace with honour " is a good motto, but '' Peace with 
justice " would be a better, for so-called honour is not always 
just ; and " Peace with justice and progress " seems best of all, 
since the securing of the minimum rights of man has its 
natural complement in the living of a fuller human life. 
The condition of peace is not an end in itself. It is merely 
a means to the well-being of fraternal communities, and the 
consequent happiness of an increasing number of individuals. 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 19 

Tolstoyans and other optimistic pacifist-quietists hold that 
ultimate peace may be brought about by moral forces alone. 
The view here adopted is that it cannot be brought about 
without appropriate political measures. These stand to moral 
forces in the community much as an act of volition stands to 
moral sentiment in the individual. But just as good deeds 
ultimately rest on good intentions, so must salutary political 
steps result from the prevailing moral disposition of the com- 
munity. 

The moral supports of peace may be said to be four — 
namely, fraternity, fidelity, love of justice, and reasonability. 
Fraternity involves a kindly reciprocity, opposed to national 
arrogance and ambition, and also of course to overt aggression. 
Fidelity means the strict adherence to engagements, which 
contrasts with the tearing up of treaties as " scraps of paper " 
on the wholly immoral plea of '' military necessity." Love of 
justice is a natural outcome of the two preceding virtues, since 
justice is that which prohibits or punishes aggression and the 
breaking of agreements. Eeasonability is the crowning 
political virtue. It is by far the most difficult virtue for 
a " Great Power " to manifest. It is diametrically opposed 
to that false pride which always refuses to admit a fault or 
to accept a judgment running counter to its own supposed 
interests or real prejudices — that pride which frequently 
masquerades as love of justice, because it confuses abstract 
justice with what J or we or my party or our nation choose 
to call just. Eeasonability is, moreover, that essentially 
^parliamentary virtue which invites free inquiry and frank 
discussion, and is thus the antithesis to lying partisan propa- 
ganda, to systematic espionage, to political intrigue and secret 
diplomacy, and the chief antidote to that atmosphere of uni- 
versal suspicion which falsehood, treachery, and secretiveness 
unite to create. 



20 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

VIII 
THE NEEDED KEFOKM IN INTEENATIONAL LAW 

The world is now receiving a striking object-lesson on the 
very small value which attaches to international law in the 
eyes of the truculent rulers and conscript forces of a highly 
perfected military State. Probably many of these redoubtable 
warriors do not know that international law exists. If they 
are to be taught that it does, the rest of the civilized world 
must now, once for all, make up its mind on the subject. 

The jurists assure us that international law has three 
divisions, referring respectively to the relations of States at 
peace, to those of belligerent nations (mitigating the barbarities 
of war) , and to those between belligerents and neutrals. What 
is now known as " the law of peace " covers rights and obliga- 
tions under the five heads of independence, property (chiefly 
territory), jurisdiction, equality, and diplomacy. I venture the 
opinion that, if rights and obligations under the first three 
heads were reasonably defined and their definitions commonly 
accepted, there could be no more wars. As things go, however, 
a considerable part of international law is concerned with the 
mode of conducting war. 

According to Mr. J. T. Lawrence, a recognized authority 
on the question, " Modern International Law does not attempt 
to decide upon the justice or injustice of war in general, or any 
war in particular. It leaves such questions to International 
Morality." This is strictly in accordance with the principle 
laid down by the same writer, that " the rules of International 
Law are to be discovered by observing the conduct of States 
in their mutual dealings ; its method is mainly historical and 
inductive "; and again : '' The express or tacit consent of States 
to be bound by the rules of International Law is generally 
regarded as the sole and sufiicient foundation for their 
authority." An exponent of law has, of course, to state what 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 21 

the law is, and not what he considers it ought to be; and Mr. 
Lawrence says, very truly, in another place : " International 
Law advances by means of the growth of opinion ; and to its 
students belongs the responsibility of influencing the minds of 
men in favour of righteousness in all transactions between 
States."* A pacifist, therefore, is at liberty to say that, 
although international law does actually leave the question of 
war, together with many other pertinent questions, to inter- 
national morality, it ought not to do so, but should '* advance 
by the growth of opinion " to an explicit prohibition of war 
between civilized States. 



IX 
HUMANITY'S OCCUPATION OF THE GLOBE 

"While the moral principle of international justice is dia- 
metrically opposed to national aggrandizement at the expense 
of other nations, the common sense of political economy shows 
that war is incompatible with the true material interests of 
the modern world. I shall not, however, repeat any of the 
arguments of Mr. Norman Angell, who has made this branch 
of the subject specially his own. The pacifist who is bent on 
slaying the dragon of militarism has many strings to his bow, 
and the one which I wish to employ, before closing this brief 
plea for collective sanity, is the humble and elementary string 
of political geography. At an early period in human progress 
the relatively civilized nations lived here and there on the face 
of an unmapped and practically unknown globe. There was 
room for nomadic tribes to wander far and wide. There were 
huge stretches of land that no nation owned, and whose poten- 
tial riches no keen-eyed Companies sought to exploit. At a 



* The foregoing quotations are from A Handhooh of International Law, by 
T. Lawrence, M.A., LL.D. (Macmillan ; 1913) ; pp. 91, 6, 15, 7. 



22 THE WIDER OUTLOOK 

comparatively late period Rome aspired vainly to become 
a world empire, when it was not even in touch with the 
greater part of the world. All that is now changed. The 
whole earth has been accurately mapped out, and any districts 
which have not been surveyed in detail fall within those larger 
countries which are well known. The arctic and antarctic 
regions have both been explored. Almost every land which 
is not occupied by one or other of the recognized civilized 
States (and, in this connection, China should certainly rank 
as civilized and sovereign) comes within the allowed Sphere 
of Influence of some such State. This means that it is now 
becoming possible, as it was never before equally possible, to 
delimit all frontiers of Sovereign States and their Colonies or 
Spheres of Influence, and to agree that those frontiers shall 
not be extended in any direction without a lawful international 
warrant. Frontiers cannot be fixed for all time, and it is not 
desirable that they should be so fixed ; but territory should be 
allowed to pass from one Power to another, or a misgoverned 
State to be absorbed in a well-governed one, or a progressive 
subject nation to become an independent State, only on con- 
ditions approved by the International Council or sanctioned 
by the International Tribunal ; both of which would, no doubt, 
insist on consulting the wishes of any civilized population, 
when affected by a proposed alteration in its status and allegi- 
ance. All such questions should come, in the first instance, 
before the Council, and, if its advice were not accepted by one 
of the parties concerned, recourse should be had to the 
Tribunal, whose ruling should be final. 



X 

"THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN" 

The theory of any nation having a mission to impart 
civilization (to say nothing of religion) through military 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 23 



occupation is always a dangerous one, and becomes utterly 
false and pernicious when employed to excuse aggression by 
a great nation on a lesser nation, whose civilization, though 
not exactly agreeing with its own, stands approximately at 
the same level. Here the great nation and the lesser nation 
have each a right to prefer its own type of government, law, 
and custom ; and, if so, it is clear that the greater power of 
the great nation gives it no right to impose its rule or its 
ideals on a weaker people by force of arms. It is a different 
matter when a highly civilized Power comes into contact with 
savage or barbarous tribes, or with small States tyrannically 
governed or plunged in anarchy. It then sometimes becomes 
a duty to put down certain inhuman practices or prescribe 
certain salutary rules with the backing of armed force, and 
the fact that the carrying out of this duty may be connected 
with the motives of acquiring territory and exploiting native 
labour does not justify the argument that the alleged duty is 
merely a hypocritical pretence. An International Council and 
Tribunal could, between them, take up ''the white man's 
burden " (which is also to some extent the yellow man's) in 
earnest, seeing to it that in future no systematic atrocities in 
any community, and no gross oppression of helpless natives 
by "civilized" syndicates, shall be permitted. These are 
cases in which international sentiment, acting through an 
international organ, might properly intervene, but in which 
no one of the Great Powers can now intervene without drawing 
the violent suspicion of all the other great and little Powers 
to its own real or supposed nefarious designs. 



XI 

UNIQUE CHAEACTEK OF THE BKITISH EMPIEE 

My last paragraph has an obvious bearing on the building 
up of the British Empire in the past. It is clear that the 



24 THE WIDEK OUTLOOK 

motives underlying that development have been very mixed, 
and by no means always creditable to England ; but our now 
great sister State, America, when she entered on her inde- 
pendent career, taught us a lesson which our statesmen have 
had the sense to take to heart. Its results are patent to-day 
in the wonderful rally to the British flag of the self-governing 
Colonies and native Indian States. In fact, we have somehow 
arrived at a sort of polity which is new in the history of the 
world, and it is really a gross libel on the British Empire to 
call it an empire. That term has almost always stood for a 
military autocracy on the model of Eome, after its republican 
institutions were either suppressed or rendered farcical. There 
was indeed a Roman Empire, which later split into the rival 
Empires of West and East, the mantle of whose imperial and 
religious traditions has fallen upon Austria and Russia respec- 
tively ; while the Prussian hegemony of Germany is, like the 
shorter-lived and less systematic Napoleonic domination, a 
monstrous modern revival of the old imperial ideal of military 
autocracy, in a social environment which is totally unsuited 
to it. The British Empire is not an empire in this sense, and 
if we may hope to see it more effectually consolidated or 
intimately united than at present, that must be by its becoming 
less rather than more i^nperial. It may perhaps become a 
United States of Greater Britain, under the nominal and 
strictly constitutional sovereignty of the English monarch, 
and having a so-called Imperial Parliament for the regulation 
of inter- State affairs and the promotion of common interests. 
Such a Parliament would naturally leave an even larger 
measure of self-government to the widely scattered States of 
the new British Union than the United States constitution 
leaves to its component members. 

A fellow pacifist with whom I have corresponded suggests, 
as the most practical way to peace, a federation of the nations 
of the British Empire on certain specified democratic lines, 
which would throw open its doors to all other nations willing 
to join and agreeing to abide by the given conditions of 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAR 25 

federation. The British Empire might thus, in time, develop 
into a Federation of All Nations, pledged to perpetual peace. 
We Britons must, however, remember that this Empire of 
ours, despite its pre-eminent extent, which is no true measure 
either of excellence or of power, constitutes only one among 
the eight or nine Great Powers of the world. Of the others, 
France and the United States share the best of our ideals; 
they are in form more democratic than, and in fact at least as 
progressive as, we. They do not want to be taken under our 
wing, or to seem to be so taken. Thus, if what might be 
called a Democratic League of Peace were to be framed, 
Britain, France, and America should co-operate from the first 
in framing it. The inception of such a League need in no 
way interfere with the closer consolidation of the British 
Empire. In any case, the United States of Greater Britain 
should be so constituted as to form no menace to other nations, 
but rather to assist directly in the promotion of international 
law and friendly intercourse between all peoples. 



XII 

A LEAGUE, AS ALTEKNATIVE TO A LAW, OF 

PEACE 

Although the consistent pacifist must advocate a regime of 
universal arbitration, he may not think it immediately practic- 
able, and he ought to be prepared with a second-best solution 
of the problem which militarism creates. This would be a 
League of Peace, as suggested in the last paragraph. If an 
influential group of States should voluntarily resign the 
supposed right of making war on one another, and at the same 
time agree that no one of them would carry on military 
operations outside its own territory without the consent of the 
others, and that the defence of their respective territories 



26 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

should be a common duty, this (though a much less desirable 
solution than a frank all-round acceptance of the principle of 
arbitration) would probably secure the peace of the world in 
the end. If such a League should be formally approved by 
the three Great Powers, Britain, France, and the United 
States, Italy might be invited to join ; so that the two chief 
representatives of strictly constitutional Monarchy would be 
linked to the two chief representatives of Eepublicanism, and 
the right of entering the League might then be extended to as 
many of the smaller nations as are either Eepublics or truly 
constitutional Monarchies. Russia, Japan, and China, and, if 
possible, Germany and Austria themselves, might be admitted 
on giving certain guarantees, which the Common Council of 
the League should approve. As many States as actually 
joined the League would be at once relieved of all military 
competition between themselves, and would only have to 
make sure that their aggregate navies and armies remained 
sufficiently strong to cope with any probable hostile combi- 
nation of outside Powers. 

There would, of course, be the remote possibility of a rival 
League of Peace being formed, and of the two Leagues ulti- 
mately going to war with one another ; repeating, in fact, on 
a still more terrible scale, the procedure of the Triple Alliance 
(so called) and the Triple Entente (so proved). This, however, 
seems a somewhat fantastic eventuality, and its realization 
might be guarded against. The Hague Conference, or any 
thoroughly international body taking its place, might be invited 
to consider, and, if approving, give its explicit sanction to, the 
constitution and objects of the League ; thus recognizing the 
League as essentially friendly to those nations which may not 
have become members of it, and, consequently, placing any 
rival combination outside the pale of international law. 

No doubt many democrats may feel that a League of 
Peace between liberty-loving nations is more desirable than a 
treaty of universal arbitration between all so-called civilized 
States. We certainly do not want a treaty which might 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 27 

indirectly strengthen autocratic rulers or ruling castes against 
the liberties of subjects or subject States. There are, indeed, 
dangers attendant on all experiments ; yet progress consists in 
making experiments, and my own view is that democratic 
ideals will win their way best under a condition of assured 
peace. Thus, while I should not advocate admitting Eussia 
and Germany, without special guarantees, to a limited League 
of Peace, I think that they might, if they would, become, at the 
close of this war, parties to a universal Treaty of Arbitration. 
That would logically involve a general, if gradual, disbandment 
of armies, and the cessation of active militarism. Most of the 
energies which the nations now spend on warlike preparations 
would then be inevitably diverted to internal development. 
The very men who might have led armies to victory would be 
winning victories of peaceful organization and reform. 



XIII 

THE WOKLD WAR AND ITS TROUBLED 
SPECTATORS 

At the time when I write these lines six out of the eight 
recognized Great Powers of the world are at war. Most of 
them are fighting " for all they are worth," or, as some of 
them at times profess, for their very existence. Two of the 
smaller sovereign States have been plunged from the first, 
and three others have been already drawn, into this whirlpool 
of armed strife. Of the remaining Great Powers, Italy may 
decide to throw in her lot with the Allies. In that case, the 
only Great Power remaining neutral would be the United 
States of America. There are, however, the large majority 
of relatively small nations, and there is China, the most popu- 
lous and pacific of all States, still adhering to the policy of 
peace. 



28 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

Now let us not forget that the belHgerent Powers, taken 
collectively, have made themselves, and are making themselves, 
a terrific nuisance to these neutrals. The world's finance 
almost collapsed at the outbreak of hostilities ; belligerents 
and neutrals suffered a common impoverishment from the fall 
of securities. The commerce and industry of neutrals have 
been interfered with in a dozen different ways. The laws of 
contraband are a standing grievance, augmented rather than 
ameliorated by the usage of the present war. Not a few 
innocent subjects of neutral States have fallen victims to 
Teutonic mines and torpedoes, or been exposed to aerial 
bombs. Others have undergone varied sufferings incidental 
to being stranded in a militarist madhouse. Switzerland has 
been robbed of most of her tourists. Holland has been flooded 
with Belgian refugees. Rich Americans have lost their 
European playground. Some half-a-dozen small nations are 
morally entitled to claim indemnities for being forced to 
mobilize, at a huge cost, in self-defence, when the quarrel 
was none of theirs. If, then, the neutral nations should bring 
certain pressure to bear towards making a speedy end of the 
war, I do not say that we should yield to it before the chief 
ends of the Allies are gained, but we could not reasonably resent 
it as fiery spirits engaged in a free fight may resent inter- 
ference on the part of benevolent bystanders who are not 
sufferers themselves. The neutral nations are sufferers, and 
are, on the whole, long-suffering ones. 



XIV 
THE DUTY OF THE NEUTRAL NATIONS 

While it is not, at least from the Allies' point of view, the 
duty of the neutral nations to interfere with the course of the 
war, it certainly is their duty to claim a voice in the settle- 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 29 

ment of various issues which the war has raised, and to insist 
on the reorganization of international hfe on a better basis 
than it has ever had in the past. It is much to be wished 
that President Wilson, as the trusted spokesman of the greatest 
of the neutral Powers, might succeed in marshalling all other 
neutral nations, great and small, into a compact body agreed, 
if not on the principle that war between civilized nations 
should cease, at least on the principle that, since war between 
any two or more nations may have prejudicial effects on many 
other nations, all future disputes between nations shall be laid 
before an International Council, tvhose advice shall be care- 
fully considered by the Governments concerned before they 
commit themselves to any active hostilities. 

In this age of universal commerce and easy communica- 
tions — of steamships, railways, postal and telegraphic systems, 
and aircraft — the human world has become too much of an 
organic unity to admit of any countries being simply indifferent 
to the concerns of other countries. At present mankind may 
be said to be a vague sort of organism, which needs a central 
nervous system to regulate the working of its various organs. 
In ancient times the Koman Empire, and in the Middle Ages 
the Eoman Catholic Church, attempted to supply some such 
system ; but neither could permanently subdue the hetero- 
geneous life of the European peoples, to say nothing of that 
of the whole world. In fact, the nations cannot be subdued 
to any one pattern either of civil or religious life ; but they 
may yet learn to reconcile their idiosyncrasies in the working 
body of an organized Humanity. With that high aim in 
view, a properly constituted International Council might well 
play the part of a central nervous system. 

Should the nations agree to enter on a full polity of 
pacifism, owning a supreme arbitral Tribunal as well as a 
representative Consultative Council, it would not be a case of 
all assuming permanent neutrality, but of none ever becoming 
neutrals. All would be friendly allies in the bond of peace, 
and at the same time potential belligerents against any Power 



30 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 

which persisted in defying international law as interpreted by 
the Arbitral Court. International law itself would be altered 
by the entire ruling out * of what is now known as the law 
of neutrality. There would still be a contingent law of 
belligerency ; but this would apply to the action of the whole 
protective forces of civilization against any recalcitrant nation 
which it might be necessary to coerce. Except for this, the 
law of nations would be an enlarged version of what is now 
known to jurists as the law of peace. The law of peace would 
have become supreme. 



XV 

THE DUTY OF PEOGEESSIVE STATESMEN 

The mass of the public in all lands must always be in- 
articulate, while writers who care more for serious reflection 
on the broad aspects of human experience and conduct than 
for self-advertisement and brilliant befogging rhetoric are 
generally condemned to reniain as voices crying in the wilder- 
ness. The triumph of pacifism must therefore largely depend 
on the pacific and progressive statesmen of the world taking 
the lead to which their position entitles them, and making 
a new and fruitful use of it. It is their duty to actively pro- 
mote, rather than merely to echo, public opinion on the 
subject. Those British politicians who believe that inter- 
national relations might be placed on a healthy and secure 
footing should not hesitate to put themselves in correspon- 
dence with the American statesmen who avowedly hold this 
view, and should also solicit the influence of leading spirits 
among their continental Allies in paving the way for a great 
friendly discussion, by accredited representatives of all nations, 



* Not, of course, by the Court as such, but by a treaty-law voluntarily 
negotiated by the independent Powers. 



BEYOND THE WOELD WAE 31 

of the world's future conduct of world affairs. Even if this 
Conference fell short of the splendid achievement of a treaty- 
law of compulsory arbitration, it could hardly fail to insist 
on a bold remodelling of the Hague Conference and Tri- 
bunal, which would make of these instruments far more 
efficient and trusted means for promoting good relations 
between civilized States than they have hitherto proved. The 
Conference would have either to resolve itself into or to arrange 
for the appointment of a standing International Councily 
which would not merely meet, like the present Hague Conference, 
once in seven years, but would exercise a continual watch over 
international affairs. The nations should never henceforth 
allow themselves to relapse into their old attitude of mutual 
isolation, with sporadic alliances and ententes aiming to 
maintain an impossible balance of power against rival com- 
binations. That order of things gives perpetual oppor- 
tunity for the militarists to triumph over liberty and progress 
with their cry to prepare for all contingencies — to drill more 
and more soldiers — to invent and manufacture, at an ever- 
increasing cost, new and deadlier materials and instruments 
for destroying men and cities. These sage counsellors are 
always prophesying future wars, while their methods are always 
tending to create those wars, and thus fulfil their own prophe- 
cies. Then they exult in their prescience, and in the renewed 
glories of war, so long as their own side seems likely to win ; 
but Humanity suffers in any case. Let Humanity begin to act. 
Let the nations, now rudely awakened from their dream of 
peace arrayed in shining armour, seek peace in the only rational 
way — through the final exaltation of civil above military insti- 
tutions. One of the civil institutions required is a recognized 
Tribunal for administering international law as it stands. 
Another is a permanent Council for promoting the growth of 
salutary international laws — a Council composed of trusted 
delegates elected by the various States, and ready at all times 
to discuss international relations and tender its weighty advice 
to the individual Powers. 



32 THE WIDEE OUTLOOK 



A seat in the International Council would be one of the 
highest honours that any human being could attain to, and 
only statesmen or political thinkers of acknowledged eminence 
in their respective countries would appear in this potential 
Parliament of the World. Such men (or men and women), 
while naturally promoting their own nations' interests and 
views, would be quite capable of taking a detached survey 
of international questions, and of acting as true citizens 
of the world — honourable representatives of the whole great 
human commonwealth. They would know well that the 
material interdependence of all modern nations is the most 
solid of facts. They would feel that an ultimate moral unity 
of mankind is the most sublime of ideals. 



PKINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STHBET, LONDON, E.G. 



^3 



75. 




















'V' • 
















%.^" ^ 















^^n^ 










-^o. 




OK T'^^.^^^K^I ^^^^^ ^Jm^^r^. -^^ .^ 



^P-^^ 



.o- 










0^ . 








^ ■' • • s 4 V> 




.^' 







v-^^ 








.^P^r 



^^ ^^^ %^ 









.'^ 



>'^ 




.-^ 











o w ' -2,0' 



**>. '*::-•' ,**' 



o V 



